33. Callahan
THIRTY-THREE
callahan
It’s written all over Lucie’s face.
Confusion. Pain. Rejection.
Betrayal.
And it makes me snap.
I push her out of the way, lunging for that fucking cunt, de Rosa.
I slam my gun into the side of his head, knocking him down to the floor.
I kick his weapon away.
It skitters across the hardwood.
Seamus is in the hall with Mikey, who called me and then let us in.
Seems Mikey understands real loyalty.
His is to Lucie, and he chose her and us.
He lives. I can use him.
Shit, I can make room for anyone loyal to Lucie, anyone who cares for her.
But the piece of shit who isn’t even her fucking father?
No.
He could be lying about that, but I really don’t care.
A real parent isn’t a matter of blood and birth.
And he’s not even close to being a fucking parent to her.
He treats her like property, one he knows the price of but not the worth.
And I do believe he’d kill her if he needed to.
If he chose to .
He doesn’t give a damn about her.
I can see that now. It’s so clear, I don’t understand how I missed it before.
And it makes me so furious, so fucking sick to my stomach.
“Get on your fucking knees,” I growl.
Vincent pushes himself onto his knees, then tries to rise, but I shake my head and shove my gun deep into his mouth.
“No chance, asshole. You don’t deserve to fucking stand. You’re a piece of shit.”
“Callahan, please, don’t. He’s my father,” Lucie says behind me.
I squeeze my eyes shut for a second, trying like hell to shut her out.
Because her words have the opposite effect on me.
They should make me hesitate, rethink what I’m doing.
Instead, they make me struggle with not pulling the trigger.
“I was willing to let you live if you left Lucie alone,” I say softly.
“I’d have let you live, even let you keep access to the doors I opened for you. But now? Fuck no.”
He tries to speak, but it’s a little hard to form coherent words when you’re deep throating a gun.
“Callahan. Please…”
Her voice breaks now, and I can hear the tears in her pleading tone, the hurt.
I know I should call Seamus in here to get her out, but I’m too far gone for that.
She needs to see me, who I really fucking am, who he really is.
That’s not fair to her, though.
I know she should be left with the illusion that he loves her.
Even if he doesn’t.
But I can’t.
“Feeding your girl to the wolves,” I snarl.
“To me. You fed her to me, the worst of the lot.” I lean in.
“You’re less than nothing. ”
I almost don’t see it, him reaching for the small of his back, pulling a gun.
He knows he’s going to die, and so the fucker aims at Lucie.
But before he can pull the trigger, I pull mine, blowing out the back of his skull.
I kick the body as it crumples.
Lucie screams. But I don’t look back as I clean off my gun and pull out my pack of cigarettes.
I stick one between my lips, pull out my Zippo, and light up.
I take a few deep puffs before I finally stand up and walk toward her.
Lucie is rooted to the spot, staring at me with wide, disbelieving eyes.
I know she’ll never, ever forgive me, but still I kiss her softly.
“You’re fucking mine, Lucie. And don’t you wish you weren’t? You’re tethered to a monster, love. Bought and paid for. And if you want to run, do it, but I warn you, I’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth until I find you.”
I don’t know if I’m trying to make her stay with me, if I’m warning her what I’ll do, or if I’m pushing her away.
Shit. Maybe I’m trying to give her everything all at once.
“Seamus? Take Lucie out of here.”
My brother hesitates, like I can’t be trusted.
And he might just have a point because there’s an urge beating in me to go on a murderous rampage, to spill enough blood to either cleanse my soul or drown in my own evil.
A long moment passes, and then Mikey speaks up.
“I’ll take her home and I’ll take that job offer, too.”
I nod as he leads her away.
Seamus looks from the body to me.
“What the fuck, Cal?”
“The fuck?” I push a hand through my hair.
“The fuck is he was about to kill her.”
“Then—”
“Shut up, Seamus,” I snap.
“You want me to go after her? It won’t make a lick of difference. She’s going to leave, and I’m going to hunt her down. But first, I need to get wildly drunk.”
He shakes his head and then glances once more at Vincent.
“And this?”
“Cleanup crew.” And with that, I head for the door.
He follows. He gets behind the wheel, forcing me into the passenger seat.
As we drive away, it registers that there’s no one at the guardhouse at the gate, and no one came running.
Mikey.
I’d bet my life on it.
He warned them off or sent them home.
When we spoke, he told me we’d be able to drive on in without issue.
And he was spot-on.
I don’t know what bar we go to.
It’s dark, mostly empty, and suits my mood.
I sit in the corner, back to the wall, and shoot whiskey after whiskey.
Seamus nurses one of his own, and I really don’t care that he does, even though I just want to be alone right now.
I drag my fingernail through the grooves in the dark wood grain, letting the liquor muffle the noise in my head.
“How long are we doing this tonight, Cal?”
I slant him a glare.
“Until I’m numb.”
A couple comes in, stumbling, and Seamus scoots himself back, making sure there’s more distance between me and them.
Like he’d be able to stop me if I decided to start something.
Lucky for him and his face, I don’t want to.
But I do really want to check in on Lucie.
She has that stupid little cat, Arnold, and my brothers with her.
She’s fine.
Ah, fuck, she’s probably veering between tears and making voodoo dolls of me.
Or would she only do that if I hadn’t just killed her no-good, fake bastard father ?
When I go outside for a smoke, Seamus follows because he clearly doesn’t trust me, and he’s right not to.
I kick back against the wall and stare up at the sky.
“So let me get this straight, Cal. You save the girl, you’ve gone completely soft for her, we all have eyes and see that, but then you kill her father?—”
“Not her da.”
“—in front of her and then you kiss her, give her some wild speech about turning her into sport to hunt her down like a crazy man?—”
“Not crazy.” Maybe a little crazy.
“But the other shit is true. She’s mine.”
“You don’t own people, Cal.”
I snicker.
“You say that now, but meet a lass like Lucie. You’ll change your tune.”
“Do you?—?”
“Careful with your words, Seamus. If you want to keep breathing.”
He rolls his eyes and lets out a frustrated sigh.
I take another drag of my cigarette.
“I saved her twice; I get to tell her she’s mine.”
He takes the cigarette and finishes it.
So I light up another.
“Cunt.”
“Fucker.”
“You quit smoking years ago, Seamus.”
He shakes his head, smiling.
“You drove me back to it. Look, Cal, do me a favor. Tell her how you feel, even if it’s just that you want her to stay and that you like her. Or let her go or work out some deal, but… Lucie… Fuck. She’s young and she looks at you with her heart in her eyes.”
“God forbid,” I mutter, trying to ignore the sudden slam of my own heart into my rib cage.
After a few more drinks, and Seamus having to stop me from punching someone, he drags me out of the bar.
We drive around, and I smoke half the pack of Carrolls, then force him to pull up to a liquor store to buy me a bottle of whiskey.
He gets me Jameson. I drink it straight from the bottle, ignoring his head shake.
I stare out the window as he drives some more, the passing lights blurring more with each second.
“Fucking de Rosa got in bed with O’Sullivan because the guy would’ve offered him a deal.”
Seamus sighs.
“One that wouldn’t have been what he signed up for. Paddy must have sought him out when he got wind of our deal.”
“Does it matter?” It doesn’t.
Paddy would have screwed him over, stepped in, and then taken us out.
Or tried to. And de Rosa?
Fucking greedy fuck.
“De Rosa wanted all our power and all our contacts on both sides of the pond.”
“I get that,” he says, “I do. But that’s not how it works.”
“The idiot figured the contract would have given him all of our assets if we were out of the picture or if he could get Lucie to turn against us.”
He snorts.
“Lucie? She wouldn’t ever betray you, and you know she wouldn’t betray her family.” He falls quiet.
“Maybe there was another way, Cal.”
Maybe.
“I would have let him live, Seamus. Maybe.”
“Maybe? Good to know,” he says as we pull up to a red light.
“I warned him to keep the fuck away from her, I warned him. And don’t get me wrong, I wanted to pull that trigger long before I did. But do you know why I did it?”
Things are getting hazy and my eyelids grow heavy.
“Why?”
“Because the fucker had another gun,” I say, my voice thick.
“He pulled it and pointed it at Lucie. He was-s gonna shoot her. He had to die.”
And then everything goes black.
I come to with a jolt sometime later.
I’m still drunk, but not insanely so.
We’re outside the house.
Or rather, I am. I don’t know where Seamus is.
But then I see him as I pour myself out of the car.
He’s coming down the steps.
“There’s a problem,” he says.
And behind him, Torin appears in the doorway.
“I just got home myself. Heard you had quite an evening.”
I’m not in the mood for this.
I’m about to say I’m going to bed when their faces sober me up.
And I race up the steps and inside.
There’s no dog. No cat.
I go from floor to floor.
No Declan.
No bride.
There’s no note. Nothing.
They’re gone.
All of them. Fucking gone.